Nashville Electric Service Extend the Enterprise to the Mobile Workforce for Lower Costs, Increased Safety

Nashville Electric Service (NES) is one of the largest publicly owned electric utilities in the US, serving more than 360,000 residential and business customers across seven counties in north-central Tennessee. In 2010, the American Public Power Association awarded NES the Reliable Public Power Providers (RP3®) Diamond status, the electric industry’s highest designation for reliability, safety, workforce development and system improvement.

Business Challenge

NES was considering either a vehicle-centric AVL solution or onboard computer alternatives for their automatic vehicle loation system (AVL). They determined their requirements going forward, such as:

increased bandwidth for new applications and on-board systems

Wi-Fi hotspots to support wireless rugged devices

ability to use multiple wide area networks for increased coverage

ability to track location of critical assets in real-time

reduction in response times to outages

increased employee safety

use of an enterprise management system

ability to expand the system in the future

Sierra Wireless Solution

NES installed the oMGs in their bucket trucks and supervisory vehicles, which provided wireless connectivity to laptops and other devices in and around the vehicle. The oMG roams across wireless networks to provide the highest bandwidth and most reliable communications. The InMotion Solution was straightforward for Operations to install, maintain and upgrade, and requires no field worker intervention.